Iran Wrestling News

[The Genius 368]

Zare v Akgul up now... 

AMIR HOSSEIN ZARE DEFEATS TAHA AKGUL 4-0 

THE BOY HAS TURNED INTO A MAN

Edited October 2, 2021 by The Genius

[HawkY 112]

Passing of the Torch Zare Akgul?   Still needs to beat Geno, but happy if a new heavyweight king emerges and ends the duopoly. 

The Greatest vs Taylor IV is happening. 

 

[irani 820]

So this is how I see the world's so far

• We had 5 guys with shots at medals
  • Two have reached the finals 
  • One was eliminated (Amouzad)
  • The two guys who are in the finals are both considered underdogs, I consider Yazdani a bigger underdog that Za-Re
  • The two guys tomorrow  who have shots at medals are Ghassempour and Goleji
    • I had high hopes for Ghassempour, until he draw Cox in the first round, if he can beat Cox, I would argue he will be our best chance for a gold
    • Goleji is Goleji, Bronze is his limit

I am concerned that we will end up with two silvers and two bronzes in these championships

[The Genius 368]

Tomorrow's matches (57kg, 65kg, 79kg, 92kg):

Sarlak has an easy path to QF where he will likely face Bekhbayar. Has Sarlak wrestled him before? If he can beat Bekhbayar he's basically guaranteed Bronze even if he loses to Atli in the SF. Everyone else in that bracket is very weak. 

Amir Yazdani should have a very easy path to the SF where he'll likely face the winner of Shuptar/Rahimzade. Extremely weak 65kg, best chance to reach the final in a very long time. Very disappointing if A. Yazdani doesn't at least win Bronze. 

79kg is extremely weak so Nokhodi probably just needs to beat the 2021 Jr World Bronze (India - he beat that Indian 10-0 there) to reach the SF against 2018 U23 World Champion (Georgia). Nokhodi has a great chance to reach the final and I will be surprised if he doesn't win at least a Bronze. 

Ghasempour has to beat 2019 World Bronze Mtsituri to reach the SF against J'den Cox. If he can do that then he'll win Bronze. 

I expect (at least) three bronzes from these four (Ghasempour Nokhodi and Yazdani), mostly because the weights are almost comically weak and lacking in depth/quality. 

Then we have the two finals. I expect a Gold (Zare) and Silver (Yazdani) but hope Yazdani can surprise us. He didn't gas as badly in the Naifonov match which was wrestled at quite a high pace but he hasn't really improved and DT looks even more unstoppable than usual.  

Edited October 2, 2021 by The Genius

[The Genius 368]

22 minutes ago, irani said:

So this is how I see the world's so far

• We had 5 guys with shots at medals
  • Two have reached the finals 
  • One was eliminated (Amouzad)
  • The two guys who are in the finals are both considered underdogs, I consider Yazdani a bigger underdog that Za-Re
  • The two guys tomorrow  who have shots at medals are Ghassempour and Goleji
    • I had high hopes for Ghassempour, until he draw Cox in the first round, if he can beat Cox, I would argue he will be our best chance for a gold
    • Goleji is Goleji, Bronze is his limit

I am concerned that we will end up with two silvers and two bronzes in these championships

70kg and 97kg are Monday not tomorrow. Ghasempour hasn't drawn Cox in the first round - they'll meet in the SF if they both get that far 

Edited October 2, 2021 by The Genius

[Shiraz123 822]

13 minutes ago, The Genius said:

Tomorrow's matches (57kg, 65kg, 79kg, 92kg):

Sarlak has an easy path to QF where he will likely face Bekhbayar. Has Sarlak wrestled him before? If he can beat Bekhbayar he's basically guaranteed Bronze even if he loses to Atli in the SF. Everyone else in that bracket is very weak. 

  

If Sarlak makes it to the semi final and loses, I think his chances for bronze will depend on how good Japan's 57 is. He won junior worlds in 2019 then it seems he didn't wrestle again until Japanese trials this year which he also won. Those are his only two recent tournaments and one of them is from 2 years ago, so hard to say how good he is but Japanese wrestlers sometimes come from nowhere and perform well.

And agree about Yazdani, this is his 1 chance to medal in his life most likely, particularly at this weight. Maybe the 1 chance Iran will have to medal at this weight for many years because it will get a lot harder from 2022 with Otoguro and others coming back. 

[The Genius 368]

28 minutes ago, Shiraz123 said:

If Sarlak makes it to the semi final and loses, I think his chances for bronze will depend on how good Japan's 57 is. He won junior worlds in 2019 then it seems he didn't wrestle again until Japanese trials this year which he also won. Those are his only two recent tournaments and one of them is from 2 years ago, so hard to say how good he is but Japanese wrestlers sometimes come from nowhere and perform well.

And agree about Yazdani, this is his 1 chance to medal in his life most likely, particularly at this weight. Maybe the 1 chance Iran will have to medal at this weight for many years because it will get a lot harder from 2022 with Otoguro and others coming back. 

You're right, I missed Abe. Sarlak will probably lose to him. Should still be at least three bronzes out of tomorrow's four and hopefully at least one final 

[HawkY 112]

Akgul said he never felt out of a match until he faced Gable. It happened again. 

Zare bullied and outmuscled him in the position battle . Easily countered the shots Akgul tried at the end. Even countered one for offense of his own. Akgul looked tired , those last half  attempts were feeble. 

If its just decline from aging then it is what it is.  

But if Akgul is still feeling good, he has to come up with some strategies. He can't just wrestle by feel and expect to win. Geno worked well for him because he could  count on constant  shots and using his superior speed to re attack.  If he can't out strength these smaller quicker guys, than he is the one forced to initiate, use a lot of energy,  and then he becomes vulnerable.

It can't help that Turkey  is so shallow at his weight. Their  B, C ,D  are terrible. Hard to train and get better when your domestic rivals  are so much worse than you. I saw video of him practicing in Turkey recently and all the partners he rolled with looked out of shape and small. 

[The Genius 368]

34 minutes ago, HawkY said:

Akgul said he never felt out of a match until he faced Gable. It happened again. 

Zare bullied and outmuscled him in the position battle . Easily countered the shots Akgul tried at the end. Even countered one for offense of his own. Akgul looked tired , those last half  attempts were feeble. 

If its just decline from aging then it is what it is.  

But if Akgul is still feeling good, he has to come up with some strategies. He can't just wrestle by feel and expect to win. Geno worked well for him because he could  count on constant  shots and using his superior speed to re attack.  If he can't out strength these smaller quicker guys, than he is the one forced to initiate, use a lot of energy,  and then he becomes vulnerable.

It can't help that Turkey  is so shallow at his weight. Their  B, C ,D  are terrible. Hard to train and get better when your domestic rivals  are so much worse than you. I saw video of him practicing in Turkey recently and all the partners he rolled with looked out of shape and small. 

Watching Taha and Geno recently I get the impression that Taha has declined while Geno hasn't. But then Taha beat Geno 6-1 only six months ago, so that suggests it's more of a stylistic problem against smaller and quicker (in the case of Gable) or less offensive but strong (in the case of Zare) guys as you suggest. 

Zare's gas tank held up well against Taha but that was probably helped by the fact literally nothing happened for about 5 minutes, Geno won't fall victim to that so it will be interesting to see how Zare's gas tank holds up this time. Geno starts very slowly so it will probably be a case of what Zare has left in the gas tank in the second period. Almost similar to Yaz/DT in that respect. But if Zare can avoid Geno's legendary gut wrench and not gas then he should have a good chance because Geno is very open to the underhook push outs.

Edited October 2, 2021 by The Genius

[irani 820]

Here is the Zare from Taha/s match if you have not seen it or want to watch it again https://media.khabarvarzeshi.com/d/2021/10/02/0/168804.mp4

 

 

[Shiraz123 822]

9 hours ago, HawkY said:

 

It can't help that Turkey  is so shallow at his weight. Their  B, C ,D  are terrible. Hard to train and get better when your domestic rivals  are so much worse than you. I saw video of him practicing in Turkey recently and all the partners he rolled with looked out of shape and small. 

Definitely agree. I have seen Turkies various backup freestyle heavies at tournaments over the years and they are very poor, to the point where our wrestler Taheri even techs them in tournaments. They don't have many options other than past it Akgul. And I do think it's decline, but that's natural. Not huge decline, he is still able to beat/be competitive with Geno. His peak in 2015 may have been the most impressive heavy I have ever seen, along with Gable in Tokyo. Still with Turkey's heavies being very poor and him likely still able to medal I think he will go on to 2024. 

Prime Akgul is a superior wrestler to prime Geno for me. Only negative thing i'd say about Akgul is he seems to give up sometimes. Geno seems to have more of a will to win.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Shiraz123

[Shiraz123 822]

Can David Taylor cause an instagram meltdown by beating Yazdani for the fourth time?

[Shiraz123 822]

Rahimzadeh loses to Korea at 65. Path  opening more for Yazdani. 

[Shiraz123 822]

loool 1 side here has the shir o khorshid and the other 1 has the currrent flag. Possible fight in the stands in the cards?

[Shiraz123 822]

Everyone today made it to the semi

[Jaroslav Hasek 2,047]

guaranteed team thru session 1 of day 2

USA 100

Iran 86

Russia 68

Pretty fun tournament so far

Edited October 3, 2021 by Jaroslav Hasek

[Gantry 1,872]

My goodness, what a session my Iranian friends!  Cox vs Ghasempour will be a fun one, looking forward to it. 

[window12 45]

1 hour ago, Gantry said:

Cox vs Ghasempour will be a fun one, looking forward to it. 

Completely unpredictable- but fun yes

[The Genius 368]

Semis up now. 

I think Yazdani and Nokhodi have a good chance of making the final, but Sarlak and Ghasempour are heavy underdogs.

[The Genius 368]

Sarlak with the late clutch win over Atli 7-4 and is in the final v Gilman (USA).

Little Yazdani also comes through with a clutch win over Osmanov 5-4 and makes the final v Shakiev (RUS). 

[Shiraz123 822]

That was all great. Sarlak did what Atri couldn't do lol 

[Shiraz123 822]

How happy is @irani right now, his guy Nokhodi just beat U23 world champ kenchadze to make the world final

[Shiraz123 822]

Respect to Cox,  but aside from the sequence where he gave up the 2 I think Ghasempour comprehensively outwrestled Cox .

[The Genius 368]

Nokhodi beats Kentchadze 6-5 (another late win) and also makes the final v JB (USA) - our third finalist.

Ghasempour beats Cox 3*-3 !!!!! Very well deserved win. Ghasempour is incredible. 

4/4 finalists for today, who could have seen that coming?! Amazing.

[uncle bernard 1,112]

Just now, The Genius said:

Nokhodi beats Kentchadze 6-5 (another late win) and also makes the final v JB (USA) - our third finalist.

Ghasempour beats Cox 3*-3 !!!!! Very well deserved win. Ghasempour is incredible. 

4/4 finalists for today, who could have seen that coming?! Amazing.

great showing for you guys!